Life, the Universe, and Everything….

Saturday night at the convention

The 2008 edition of the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association's OTAA Convention saw good attendance and an enthusiastic crowd Saturday evening. While attendees enjoyed themselves, however, the hot and muggy conditions were well suited to creating the hazy and cloudy skies that dominated the evening's events.

Case Western Reserve University's Department of Astronomy Chair Heather Morrison was keynote speaker. She delivered a talk on current research and exciting new results coming from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey; it was entitled "The Four-Dimensional Galaxy and the Square Telescope." {The Sloan instrument is a reflector design housed inside a square wind baffle making it appear to be a square telescope.}

The ever-popular raffle took place after dinner. Prizes ranged from shirts and gift certificates to software and an Orion Aristocrat Executive desktop telescope. I won the brass telescope! Though intended mainly as a desk piece, it's actually very nice! I hope to try it out tonight on Jupiter. So what if it's a "beginner's scope" — it's probably better than what Galileo had! I'm happy to have won the grand prize though the Vixen eyepieces were awfully nice…..

Many individuals brought telescopes with them, "just in case," but only a couple were actually assembled in the field. One belonged to a CAA member whose mammoth long-tube 8-inch refractor {pictured here} impresses everyone who sees it. Turns out it's a darned good telescope, besides!

As night fell a few "sucker holes" opened up in the sky revealing brighter stars and brilliant Jupiter. Through Wiersma's refractor viewers could easily see Jupiter's major cloud bands with hints of other detail and the four Galilean moons resolved to disks. It's a fine telescope I've seen many times before but never got to use.

Clouds soon filled in most of the holes and many attendees went home. It was, however, a good night and despite the cloudy skies, most folks left smiling.

In Other News: Today (Sunday) we took delivery of a grand new washing machine. Our old Maytag Neptune fried a circuit board that would have cost hundreds to replace. We picked out a new, rather pricey, Kenmore He model that we've already used and are falling in love with…. well, whatever it is that you do when you decide you really appreciate a major appliance. Tomorrow it's back to work and the kickoff of yet another IT project to be followed by another, then another….. Job security, I guess!

The sunset was every bit as beautiful in person. I was happy to be able to capture the sun streaks/shadows (corpuscular rays) in the sky. As for the telescope… even if it turns out to be little better than a decoration, it shure is purdy! — JG